Chairs report for the Federation Ratepayers Association NZ Inc
Resident and Ratepayer groups were once quite strong in NZ. They held local Councils to account and were advocates for their local community.
More often than not it was from the local resident and ratepayer group that came the Councillors and Mayors of the local and regional Councils.
Then in in the period of 1987 to 1989 Local Government reforms were made in close association to environmental legislation that led to the Resource Management Act. The reforms of the period used the principles of accountability and separation of roles and reduced the number of local and regional Councils from 625 to 94.
At the time 154 community boards were established primarily acting as community advocates for consultations with territorial authorities and effectively disestablished the need for resident and ratepayer groups.
Over time the community boards have become an arm of Council and residents and ratepayers have become increasingly frustrated around the ability to talk to Council, and that frustration led to the Nelson conference in 2018.
The meeting tasked a small group to set up an Association of ratepayer groups and what the goals and objectives and broad strategy of such a Federation would be around support of resident and ratepayer groups and advocacy.
It has been agreed that we look at being an organisation that would ensure good processes and advocacy built around integrity, accountability, democracy, transparency and driven by expertise. That we provide support material and templates for individual member groups along with educational material so that individual ratepayer groups can hold their local Council and Council staff to those five core values of integrity, accountability, democracy, transparency and expertise and has led to the incorporation of Federation of Ratepayer Associations of NZ.
Once a strong a base around the country has been built, of strong resident and ratepayer group as we might be able to move into an advocacy role.
It has not been easy getting to we are, and I would like to thank people like Alan Preston, Jane, Mark and Ray for their work over the past couple of years, and the valued input of others like George, Bruce and Allen Reynolds that has seen the incorporation of the Federation and now our first annual general meeting.
John Riddell
Interim Chair Federation of Ratepayers Association of NZ Inc
March 2019 to July 2020